Sebastian Kane knew from the moment he stepped into the house that Meredith wasn't home. It didn't surprise him too much. She was in the habit of going out with her friends till late at night, often hanging out in bars or at the cinema, talking and laughing over matters both mundane and magical. While he might have preferred that she turn more attention to her studies, he acknowledged that it was good for her to be young while she still could.
Except that this didn't feel like one of those times when she was out at a bar too late. It didn't feel like she had gone out with her friends for some fun and games. For one thing, there wasn't a note on the table like there usually was, not even a sigul or a rune inscribed in the air to indicate that she'd gone out drinking or dancing. There wasn't any sign of her presence in the house, and the only indication he had that she'd actually come home from work was that her working clothes were in their bag, dropped in a corner of the foyer.
Curious.
Normally, he didn't go into her room when she wasn't there. He respected her right to privacy, and acknowledged her need for some space. But this ... this didn't feel right. He pushed open the door... it hadn't even been closed.
The kitten that had found her landed on his arm as soon as he entered, yowling. He shouted, flinging his arm up and the cat halfway across the room before he'd realized that it wasn't some creature attacking him. They stood at opposite ends, glaring at each other.
"I suppose you know what's happened to her," he grumped. The cat only licked its nose and looked impertinent.
"Well?" he asked after a few minutes. The kitten threw one leg over its shoulder and began to wash.
"Look, cat," he said finally, rapping his walking stick on the side of the door to get its attention. "I don't have time or patience or inclination for this. My daughter is missing, and you more than likely know where she is. You wouldn't have come near me if she wasn't in trouble. So why don't you just tell me where she is, and we don't have to speak to each other again." Sebastian Kane hated witch's cats. In Meredith's cat's case, the feeling was mutual.
The kitten took a few more seconds to wash, during which Sebastian tapped his stick on the side of the door impatiently. Finally he leaped down from the windowsill and trotted over to the desk, pulling down a newspaper with an awkward looking leap. He paged through it with a paw until he got to the section he wanted, and then he ...
Sebastian blinked.
The cat had defecated on an obituary.
Well, he thought to himself. That's certainly an indication of some feeling. He winced, putting a handkerchief to his nose, moved the cat more delicately than he might have otherwise, and took a look at the obituary.
Cyrus Kriticos.
Sebastian snorted. He knew the man wasn't dead... knew it for a fact, even, because he had caught Cyrus crashing his own funeral. It was the worst kind of hubris to do so... Magicians and sorcerers faked their own deaths all the time; even the illustrious Swann had staged one of the most elaborate productions ever, and then promptly been skewered on his own swords in the middle of it. Privately, Sebastian thought it was particularly cruel to do so with his wife in the audience. But only the most egotistical of magicians actually attended their own funerals and wakes. It just... wasn't done.
But... what was Meredith doing with Cyrus Kriticos?
The cat yowled, running around in tight little circles. Sebastian interpreted this (correctly) as a sign of urgency, and gave the room a cursory examination. "I understand, cat," he muttered impatiently as he looked to see what was out of place. And then he caught sight of it, the closet door open, the duffel bag she usually kept packed for emergencies mundane and magical, gone.
There had been a rumor going around some years back. Kriticos had .. done something. He had been having a house constructed, to bizarre specifications as most magic-practitioners houses were when they had the chance. But this one had been more bizarre than usual... Meredith usually kept more organized notes on that sort of thing, on the box Sebastian usually shrank from. Let his daughter be preoccupied with the computer age. He would stick to writing letters. "Cat..." he said slowly. "Can you use that... thing?"
The cat snorted, gave a sort of habitual scratch as though trying to pile invisible dirt over the feces, and leaped up onto the desk. It batted the mouse around until the screen lit up again, and then proceeded to... well, play with the mouse. A few seconds later, and a picture of Kriticos's house was on the screen... and then Sebastian realized with horror what had been nagging at his mind.
"That stupid girl..." he murmured, aghast. "She's gone to ... oh, Kriticos, if you aren't dead by the time I get there, I will see your soul fed to the Ocularis..." He stepped neatly over the cat's half-hearted attempt to trip him and stormed out the door, grabbing coat and cane on the way out.
Dennis screamed.
Which sent Maggie screaming, which sent Arthur yelping (though to his credit he didn't actually scream). Everyone was screeching. It took Meredith and Laurel several minutes to calm everyone down.
"I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life..." Laurel hugged Meredith tightly.
"Where have you been?" Meredith asked finally. "I thought Cyrus had gotten you..."
"He very nearly did..." her eyes were wide and frightened, even now. "But one drawback to having a house that moves around as much as this one is that you can lose just about anyone in it. I managed to get a few panels away ... although it took a while before he stopped chasing me."
"Oh, he won't stop chasing you..." Dennis said gloomily, and Laurel glanced at him quizzically. "He'll just wait till you think you've gotten away, and then..."
"Oh..." Meredith remembered... "Guys, this is Laurel... Hon, that's Dennis, Arthur Kriticos, and Maggie..." There were handshakes all around. Laurel and Dennis's eyes locked for a second, recognition flashed in her eyes, and then she looked away. Meredith nodded, but made no other acknowledgement of what had happened.
"Look," Laurel said finally, "There's a bedroom not too far down the hallway... at least, I think it's not too far down, if the doors haven't shifted yet. We might as well go there... that way we don't have to dodge the glass, and we can all talk and have a little bit of a rest. And maybe Amber can catch up with us... have you heard from her?" she turned a worried glance to her coven-sister.
Meredith nodded tensely. "Kalina had her at gunpoint... I don't know whose bright idea it was to give Kalina a gun. I think Amber got away... at least, I heard gunshots and didn't..." Both women paled, but didn't say anything. Maggie and Arthur exchanged a look. Dennis put his hand on a wall and jumped a little, then sighed.
"She's okay," he said unexpectedly, causing everyone to look at him suddenly. He shrugged, a little self-conscious. "I just... She's okay. I don't know where she is, though. At least, I guess that's her, 'cause it's not Kalina."
"Dark blonde hair cut pretty long, probably in a pony-tail, brown eyes, small hands?" Laurel asked quietly. "Probably in jeans and a turtleneck, same as the rest of us?"
Dennis nodded slowly. "And a red vinyl jacket."
Meredith and Laurel exchanged another glance, this time of clear relief. "That's her," Meredith said, smiling. "Thanks, Dennis."
He actually smiled, a bit weakly, but it was a smile. "Hey, glad to be of help. I think."
By mutual agreement, Laurel led the way to the bedroom. It was, as promised, not very far off; it was pretty small, however. The two witches perched on the bed, while Dennis sprawled over a chair and Maggie leaned against the wall. Arthur paced, distracting both witches, but they couldn't really blame him. Laurel and Meredith conversed in low tones, for the most part, discussing the most technical details of magic and what they could do to prevent the Ocularis from opening. No new ghosts had been released, much to everyone's relief, although Dennis cringed from what Arthur and Maggie thought was thin air a couple of times. Both times, the witches looked up and glared at the air, tracing some kind of design. Whatever it was, it made the ghosts leave them alone.
After maybe half an hour the witches seemed to come to a conclusion, and looked around at the rest of the room. Arthur stopped pacing and stared at them expectantly.
"First of all, Arthur..." Laurel began as Meredith stretched back on the opulent bed. "Your children are alive. They aren't even terribly hurt, just scared. They're being kept safe for the time being... their function isn't sacrifice right now, but bait." She said it gently but bluntly, not cushioning the news at all.
Arthur took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Bait... to get me to do what he wants so he can start this.. machine."
Both witches nodded. "It'd probably be best if you went along with us while we're looking for Cyrus. You or Maggie.. you two are the only ones the kids know and trust, and if we show up and tell them it's okay, they may not believe us..." Laurel continued. She didn't say that it would also be best because it would keep Arthur from doing anything bad, out of ignorance or a desire to rescue his children, or whatever noble aim.
"Dennis..." she said then, and he looked up in alarm. "Meredith tells me you're a psychic..."
"Clairvoyant, with trace elements of precognition and multi-planear vision ranging into the spectral..." Meredith supplied, and everyone but Laurel gave her an odd look. Laurel smiled crookedly.
"... is that true?"
Dennis stared at both of them in confusion. "Well, psychic, yeah. I don't know about all that other stuff. I can't go near anything dead without having mind-blowing images that pretty much give me epileptic fits, and I can't touch anyone..." he looked at Meredith, frowned. "Except you... without getting their whole life story in a five second blast with surround-sound and digital quality pictures..."
Laurel nodded slowly. "Meredith volunteered to go lead the others up against Cyrus, and to try to find Bobby and Kathy. She said that you might want to stay here, though, where it's safe..." she paused, grimaced. "SafER, anyway. Do you want to...?" Dennis blinked. "Do you want me to stay with you?" Her voice was gentle, like talking to a small child.
"Look..." said Arthur unexpectedly. Everyone looked over at him, and he shifted uncomfortably, "Dennis. Um... Okay, look. I'm sorry about what Kalina said... what I said before, all right? It's not your fault... Cyrus would have gotten all this built with or without your help. And you didn't do anything to ..." he swallowed a little, barely perceptibly, "Kathy and Bobby. And looking around
at all this, listening to you people talk... I feel about as out of place as you must feel most of the time. I don't know what half of this stuff means, and frankly, it scares the hell out of me. So..." he ran his fingers nervously through what was left of his hair. "I don't know what I'm trying to say. I guess... I'm sorry for what I said, and thanks for doing what you have to help my family..."
Meredith and Laurel exchanged another secret glance, but didn't say anything.
Dennis took this whole speech in for a few minutes, thought about it, mostly staring at the ground and looking like a frightened rabbit. Then he stood up slowly, visibly pulling himself together... and standing up straighter, squaring his shoulders as though resigning himself to the inevitable. "Hey... I'm sorry, too, man... I mean, if I hadn't helped Cyrus with this machine, maybe someone would have stopped him in time. And, hell, I could have tried harder to stop him, and I didn't. I mean, I was scared out of my mind... the guy's creepier 'n shit... but that's still no excuse. I knew what he was up to, and I should have stopped it." He took a deep breath. "And I'm sorry as hell about what happened with your wife." He looked like he was going to add to it, stopped, reconsidered, and just stuck out his hand gingerly. "Okay?"
Arthur stared at him for a second before shaking his hand, quickly. "Okay." He pulled his hand back as Dennis winced. "Um... sorry... should I have done that...?" Dennis waved him away.
"Like I said.." Meredith said quietly after a second, "You can stay here, Dennis. Laurel or I will stay here with you. You too, Maggie... We could use your help, but no one should go out into that..." she gestured at the wall, behind which (presumably) several very angry ghosts were lurking, "... without being absolutely ready for anything that could happen."
Dennis took a deep breath, but Maggie interrupted him before he could say anything. "Hell, I never let any stupid old white guy intimidate me, and I'm not about to start now," she grinned. Everyone could tell she was putting on a brave front, but Meredith grinned anyway.
"Dennis?"
He took a deep breath. He played with the stiletto knife in his hand for a few minutes, tracing the symbols on the hilt for a minute or so before answering. "You know, up till tonight, I spent most of my life being the ultimate freak, never really getting along with anyone, till Cyrus took me in. And even he... he scared the shit out of me. I did what I had to... I needed the money, I needed the job."
"You needed the friend," Laurel said quietly, and Dennis nodded.
"But you guys... you guys are something else," he continued quietly. "And I really do feel sorry as hell for what I did. So, yeah... I'll come with you guys." He smiled a little, trying to look brave again. "It's better than sitting here waiting for them to come along and freak me out again."
Meredith smiled. She reached over and squeezed his shoulder gently, as Laurel slid off the bed and wrapped her arm around his waist, hugging him, and reaching out to take Arthur's hand as well.
"We can do this," Meredith said quietly. "Never, ever doubt that."
Laurel nodded, gently planting a kiss on Dennis's temple. "We can do this."
Arthur and Dennis exchanged confused glances. "We can," they muttered in chorus, sounding much less certain about it.
"Hell, yeah," said Maggie.
Except that this didn't feel like one of those times when she was out at a bar too late. It didn't feel like she had gone out with her friends for some fun and games. For one thing, there wasn't a note on the table like there usually was, not even a sigul or a rune inscribed in the air to indicate that she'd gone out drinking or dancing. There wasn't any sign of her presence in the house, and the only indication he had that she'd actually come home from work was that her working clothes were in their bag, dropped in a corner of the foyer.
Curious.
Normally, he didn't go into her room when she wasn't there. He respected her right to privacy, and acknowledged her need for some space. But this ... this didn't feel right. He pushed open the door... it hadn't even been closed.
The kitten that had found her landed on his arm as soon as he entered, yowling. He shouted, flinging his arm up and the cat halfway across the room before he'd realized that it wasn't some creature attacking him. They stood at opposite ends, glaring at each other.
"I suppose you know what's happened to her," he grumped. The cat only licked its nose and looked impertinent.
"Well?" he asked after a few minutes. The kitten threw one leg over its shoulder and began to wash.
"Look, cat," he said finally, rapping his walking stick on the side of the door to get its attention. "I don't have time or patience or inclination for this. My daughter is missing, and you more than likely know where she is. You wouldn't have come near me if she wasn't in trouble. So why don't you just tell me where she is, and we don't have to speak to each other again." Sebastian Kane hated witch's cats. In Meredith's cat's case, the feeling was mutual.
The kitten took a few more seconds to wash, during which Sebastian tapped his stick on the side of the door impatiently. Finally he leaped down from the windowsill and trotted over to the desk, pulling down a newspaper with an awkward looking leap. He paged through it with a paw until he got to the section he wanted, and then he ...
Sebastian blinked.
The cat had defecated on an obituary.
Well, he thought to himself. That's certainly an indication of some feeling. He winced, putting a handkerchief to his nose, moved the cat more delicately than he might have otherwise, and took a look at the obituary.
Cyrus Kriticos.
Sebastian snorted. He knew the man wasn't dead... knew it for a fact, even, because he had caught Cyrus crashing his own funeral. It was the worst kind of hubris to do so... Magicians and sorcerers faked their own deaths all the time; even the illustrious Swann had staged one of the most elaborate productions ever, and then promptly been skewered on his own swords in the middle of it. Privately, Sebastian thought it was particularly cruel to do so with his wife in the audience. But only the most egotistical of magicians actually attended their own funerals and wakes. It just... wasn't done.
But... what was Meredith doing with Cyrus Kriticos?
The cat yowled, running around in tight little circles. Sebastian interpreted this (correctly) as a sign of urgency, and gave the room a cursory examination. "I understand, cat," he muttered impatiently as he looked to see what was out of place. And then he caught sight of it, the closet door open, the duffel bag she usually kept packed for emergencies mundane and magical, gone.
There had been a rumor going around some years back. Kriticos had .. done something. He had been having a house constructed, to bizarre specifications as most magic-practitioners houses were when they had the chance. But this one had been more bizarre than usual... Meredith usually kept more organized notes on that sort of thing, on the box Sebastian usually shrank from. Let his daughter be preoccupied with the computer age. He would stick to writing letters. "Cat..." he said slowly. "Can you use that... thing?"
The cat snorted, gave a sort of habitual scratch as though trying to pile invisible dirt over the feces, and leaped up onto the desk. It batted the mouse around until the screen lit up again, and then proceeded to... well, play with the mouse. A few seconds later, and a picture of Kriticos's house was on the screen... and then Sebastian realized with horror what had been nagging at his mind.
"That stupid girl..." he murmured, aghast. "She's gone to ... oh, Kriticos, if you aren't dead by the time I get there, I will see your soul fed to the Ocularis..." He stepped neatly over the cat's half-hearted attempt to trip him and stormed out the door, grabbing coat and cane on the way out.
Dennis screamed.
Which sent Maggie screaming, which sent Arthur yelping (though to his credit he didn't actually scream). Everyone was screeching. It took Meredith and Laurel several minutes to calm everyone down.
"I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life..." Laurel hugged Meredith tightly.
"Where have you been?" Meredith asked finally. "I thought Cyrus had gotten you..."
"He very nearly did..." her eyes were wide and frightened, even now. "But one drawback to having a house that moves around as much as this one is that you can lose just about anyone in it. I managed to get a few panels away ... although it took a while before he stopped chasing me."
"Oh, he won't stop chasing you..." Dennis said gloomily, and Laurel glanced at him quizzically. "He'll just wait till you think you've gotten away, and then..."
"Oh..." Meredith remembered... "Guys, this is Laurel... Hon, that's Dennis, Arthur Kriticos, and Maggie..." There were handshakes all around. Laurel and Dennis's eyes locked for a second, recognition flashed in her eyes, and then she looked away. Meredith nodded, but made no other acknowledgement of what had happened.
"Look," Laurel said finally, "There's a bedroom not too far down the hallway... at least, I think it's not too far down, if the doors haven't shifted yet. We might as well go there... that way we don't have to dodge the glass, and we can all talk and have a little bit of a rest. And maybe Amber can catch up with us... have you heard from her?" she turned a worried glance to her coven-sister.
Meredith nodded tensely. "Kalina had her at gunpoint... I don't know whose bright idea it was to give Kalina a gun. I think Amber got away... at least, I heard gunshots and didn't..." Both women paled, but didn't say anything. Maggie and Arthur exchanged a look. Dennis put his hand on a wall and jumped a little, then sighed.
"She's okay," he said unexpectedly, causing everyone to look at him suddenly. He shrugged, a little self-conscious. "I just... She's okay. I don't know where she is, though. At least, I guess that's her, 'cause it's not Kalina."
"Dark blonde hair cut pretty long, probably in a pony-tail, brown eyes, small hands?" Laurel asked quietly. "Probably in jeans and a turtleneck, same as the rest of us?"
Dennis nodded slowly. "And a red vinyl jacket."
Meredith and Laurel exchanged another glance, this time of clear relief. "That's her," Meredith said, smiling. "Thanks, Dennis."
He actually smiled, a bit weakly, but it was a smile. "Hey, glad to be of help. I think."
By mutual agreement, Laurel led the way to the bedroom. It was, as promised, not very far off; it was pretty small, however. The two witches perched on the bed, while Dennis sprawled over a chair and Maggie leaned against the wall. Arthur paced, distracting both witches, but they couldn't really blame him. Laurel and Meredith conversed in low tones, for the most part, discussing the most technical details of magic and what they could do to prevent the Ocularis from opening. No new ghosts had been released, much to everyone's relief, although Dennis cringed from what Arthur and Maggie thought was thin air a couple of times. Both times, the witches looked up and glared at the air, tracing some kind of design. Whatever it was, it made the ghosts leave them alone.
After maybe half an hour the witches seemed to come to a conclusion, and looked around at the rest of the room. Arthur stopped pacing and stared at them expectantly.
"First of all, Arthur..." Laurel began as Meredith stretched back on the opulent bed. "Your children are alive. They aren't even terribly hurt, just scared. They're being kept safe for the time being... their function isn't sacrifice right now, but bait." She said it gently but bluntly, not cushioning the news at all.
Arthur took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Bait... to get me to do what he wants so he can start this.. machine."
Both witches nodded. "It'd probably be best if you went along with us while we're looking for Cyrus. You or Maggie.. you two are the only ones the kids know and trust, and if we show up and tell them it's okay, they may not believe us..." Laurel continued. She didn't say that it would also be best because it would keep Arthur from doing anything bad, out of ignorance or a desire to rescue his children, or whatever noble aim.
"Dennis..." she said then, and he looked up in alarm. "Meredith tells me you're a psychic..."
"Clairvoyant, with trace elements of precognition and multi-planear vision ranging into the spectral..." Meredith supplied, and everyone but Laurel gave her an odd look. Laurel smiled crookedly.
"... is that true?"
Dennis stared at both of them in confusion. "Well, psychic, yeah. I don't know about all that other stuff. I can't go near anything dead without having mind-blowing images that pretty much give me epileptic fits, and I can't touch anyone..." he looked at Meredith, frowned. "Except you... without getting their whole life story in a five second blast with surround-sound and digital quality pictures..."
Laurel nodded slowly. "Meredith volunteered to go lead the others up against Cyrus, and to try to find Bobby and Kathy. She said that you might want to stay here, though, where it's safe..." she paused, grimaced. "SafER, anyway. Do you want to...?" Dennis blinked. "Do you want me to stay with you?" Her voice was gentle, like talking to a small child.
"Look..." said Arthur unexpectedly. Everyone looked over at him, and he shifted uncomfortably, "Dennis. Um... Okay, look. I'm sorry about what Kalina said... what I said before, all right? It's not your fault... Cyrus would have gotten all this built with or without your help. And you didn't do anything to ..." he swallowed a little, barely perceptibly, "Kathy and Bobby. And looking around
at all this, listening to you people talk... I feel about as out of place as you must feel most of the time. I don't know what half of this stuff means, and frankly, it scares the hell out of me. So..." he ran his fingers nervously through what was left of his hair. "I don't know what I'm trying to say. I guess... I'm sorry for what I said, and thanks for doing what you have to help my family..."
Meredith and Laurel exchanged another secret glance, but didn't say anything.
Dennis took this whole speech in for a few minutes, thought about it, mostly staring at the ground and looking like a frightened rabbit. Then he stood up slowly, visibly pulling himself together... and standing up straighter, squaring his shoulders as though resigning himself to the inevitable. "Hey... I'm sorry, too, man... I mean, if I hadn't helped Cyrus with this machine, maybe someone would have stopped him in time. And, hell, I could have tried harder to stop him, and I didn't. I mean, I was scared out of my mind... the guy's creepier 'n shit... but that's still no excuse. I knew what he was up to, and I should have stopped it." He took a deep breath. "And I'm sorry as hell about what happened with your wife." He looked like he was going to add to it, stopped, reconsidered, and just stuck out his hand gingerly. "Okay?"
Arthur stared at him for a second before shaking his hand, quickly. "Okay." He pulled his hand back as Dennis winced. "Um... sorry... should I have done that...?" Dennis waved him away.
"Like I said.." Meredith said quietly after a second, "You can stay here, Dennis. Laurel or I will stay here with you. You too, Maggie... We could use your help, but no one should go out into that..." she gestured at the wall, behind which (presumably) several very angry ghosts were lurking, "... without being absolutely ready for anything that could happen."
Dennis took a deep breath, but Maggie interrupted him before he could say anything. "Hell, I never let any stupid old white guy intimidate me, and I'm not about to start now," she grinned. Everyone could tell she was putting on a brave front, but Meredith grinned anyway.
"Dennis?"
He took a deep breath. He played with the stiletto knife in his hand for a few minutes, tracing the symbols on the hilt for a minute or so before answering. "You know, up till tonight, I spent most of my life being the ultimate freak, never really getting along with anyone, till Cyrus took me in. And even he... he scared the shit out of me. I did what I had to... I needed the money, I needed the job."
"You needed the friend," Laurel said quietly, and Dennis nodded.
"But you guys... you guys are something else," he continued quietly. "And I really do feel sorry as hell for what I did. So, yeah... I'll come with you guys." He smiled a little, trying to look brave again. "It's better than sitting here waiting for them to come along and freak me out again."
Meredith smiled. She reached over and squeezed his shoulder gently, as Laurel slid off the bed and wrapped her arm around his waist, hugging him, and reaching out to take Arthur's hand as well.
"We can do this," Meredith said quietly. "Never, ever doubt that."
Laurel nodded, gently planting a kiss on Dennis's temple. "We can do this."
Arthur and Dennis exchanged confused glances. "We can," they muttered in chorus, sounding much less certain about it.
"Hell, yeah," said Maggie.